How did the authorities allow a 17-year-old autistic girl to die on the M5?

Autistic people with high support needs are being failed by multiple agencies across the UK, writes James Moore, who has been fighting for his own child’s care for several years

I’ve seen a lot in journalism – time spent working on a regional newspaper will do that for you – but the story of how the autistic teenager Tamzin Hall came to die in November last year still shocks me.

Tamzin, 17, was being transported in a police car to a custody suite in Bridgwater, Somerset, following an “incident” at the care home in Taunton where she had been staying. It’s a short trip of 12 miles, much of it on the M5.

Things took a turn, however, when at around 11pm, the officers transporting Tamzin stopped the car on the hard shoulder of the northbound carriageway for “safety reasons”. Tamzin somehow managed to slip the handcuffs she was wearing and left the car, running onto the motorway. She got as far as the southbound carriageway when she was hit by a vehicle. She died at the scene.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has been investigating the incident. The two officers involved – one driving, the other sitting in the back of the car with Tamzin – have been served misconduct notices “for a potential breach of their duties and responsibilities”.

Clearly, there are many questions that arise from the incident, and one would hope that answers emerge as the IOPC’s inquiries proceed. But one thing we can ask right now is whether those officers had the appropriate training for dealing with a distressed teenager with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other mental health issues. Inadequate training when it comes to dealing with people with these challenges is a common theme when tragedies occur.

In 2021, the Parliamentary Justice Committee published a report entitled “Mental Health in Prison”, which found that “action must be taken to prevent mentally ill people being sent to or kept in prison due to a shortage of mental health services in the community”.

An inevitable consequence of those shortages is that the police are frequently asked to deal with mental health crises: breakdowns, meltdowns, and the like, for which they are ill-suited.

The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), in conjunction with the College of Policing, has launched an initiative called Right Care Right Person (RCRP) designed to ensure “vulnerable people get the right support from the right emergency services”.

It says the initiative applies to “calls for service about concern for the welfare of a person, people who have walked out of a healthcare setting, people who are absent without leave (AWOL) from mental health services, and medical incidents”.

We don’t know if the “incident” that led to Tamzin’s arrest would apply. But let’s carry on. The RCRP initiative is, we are told, “about working with our partners in health and social care to make the necessary changes to service provisions to ensure that vulnerable people are given appropriate care by the appropriate agency”. Things that make you go hmm. Sometimes “the appropriate agencies” aren’t terribly helpful. Or well-trained.

Tamzin Hall. ‘One thing we can ask right now is whether those officers had the appropriate training for dealing with a distressed teenager with autism spectrum disorder and other mental health issues’ (Handout)

Online training will be given to officers, which includes outlining “the core role and responsibilities of the police in relation to legal duty (ECHR) and common law duty of care”. One would hope that would involve providing them with expertise when it comes to dealing with situations where the police do have to become involved, and de-escalating a situation would be the appropriate course of action. This is hardly the first time problems with vulnerable people have hit the headlines.

However, as I have intimated, it’s not only the police who need to pull their socks up if tragedies are to be prevented, but other authorities. In an interview with the BBC, Tamzin’s mother, Amy Hall, explained that her daughter had been taken into care because her behaviour had become difficult. Her father died when she was eight, leading to problems at school and a downward spiral. When Tamzin’s behaviour started to affect her siblings, her mother says, she asked for help. It resulted in her daughter “being taken away” into care and “went wrong from there”, Ms Hall says.

Why am I not surprised? Again, this is not the first high-profile case where the actions of the authorities are open to question. That includes local authorities, the NHS, and other agencies that are supposed to help and are funded through our taxes. Too often, they don’t help and get things horribly wrong. They also display a mulish stubbornness when it comes to admitting mistakes and putting them right.

Remember the case of the autistic teenager, Bethany, who was locked in a seclusion room in Northampton for almost two years? Her father, Jeremy, turned to the courts. As part of the process, he had to successfully fight off a gagging order from a local authority.

Bethany’s story ultimately had a happy ending as her dad managed to pry her loose from the authorities’ grip. Last year, he posted a picture of his smiling daughter to X (Twitter). “She looks bloody fantastic,” he said. And he’s right. I confess, having written about the case, that I found myself welling up when I saw it.

The experience of my family is not anything like so extreme, but we too have been the victims of poor practice, official inertia, callousness, and ineptitude towards our autistic child. An NHS that has forgotten how to care. A local council turning its back on its responsibilities. You know the drill.

Improvements are needed across the board. And sorry, but no, this is not just a matter of resources. It is just as much about people doing their damn jobs.

This country needs to do better. The performance of the state and its agencies when it comes to its autistic citizens is shameful. In the absence of improvement, tragedies like Tamzin’s will continue to occur. Bethany’s dad had the right of it when he wrote: “There is a better way. The right people doing the right thing in the right place. It’s not complex.”

No, it isn’t. It really isn’t. Perhaps the police, NHS mental health services, local authorities, and the rest might care to try it for a change.